A vocalist of stark declamatory force, Mariem Hassan lived most of her life in Western Saharan camps for dispossessed Sahrawi refugees. The former nurse found her voice in the traditional Haul music of the Sahrawi, expressing through bluesy guitars, goatskin bowl drums, and ululating female backup singers her displeasure with Morocco's treatment of her people. Hassan made a compelling case for the universality of modal desert music, singing through the pain of exile, mourning, divorce and finally cancer.